Risperidone
Sonya Wohletz
Risperdal blocks dopamine’s action on the pituitary gland and can cause the levels of prolactin to increase and reach abnormal levels. In women, prolactin stimulates breast development and breast milk production. (Mayo Clinic Connect) [1]
Galactorrhea is a well-known adverse drug reaction (ADR) of numerous antipsychotic drugs (APD) and is often distressing for those affected. (Glocker et al., 2021) [2]
What can I tell you
that could alter everything you knew in me?
An image, perhaps, rather than any words.
If I manage to conjure it,
would you forgive my defects, my diagnosis?
With your permission, I have something you may like:
There is a scene of the old apartment
in the Irish Channel, before the hurricane:
a young woman, crying again in the bathroom
because the man she thinks she loves
doesn’t understand that play means
you still have to follow certain rules,
not your own urge for violence.
As she weeps pearls of milk condense
upon her round and rigid nodes.
This milk:
in spite of the fact that there is no
(and never will be)
a baby to speak of between them:
this girl and this man.
Warm pearls of milk, cold pearls of salt:
of course, they are beautiful,
especially against a nude backdrop.
And the man’s body does slack
as the liquids enter his awareness.
For twenty-four years I had a body,
and I had a mind—like a chemical bath.
I splashed in it; I cleansed myself in it
from time to time,
and then I drowned:
When I emerged, it all became apparent—
the function of my breasts, their tremulous volumes,
their sensorium of purpose yet to be ful-
filled.
If the pills gave me anything
it was this false sense,
not a nutritive lactation, but rather like
the resinous tears adorning the polychrome
sorrow of a dolorous virgin.
Both substances (the pills and the tears):
a sign of suffering, disguised as moral achievement.
Yet, I can understand; no man
could resist this alternative gloss:
the milk, the tears,
their art upon the female form—
how could they be anything
other than the product
of his insisting hands alone?
But I slipped those ivory lozenges in my throat,
and still I failed to silence the screaming knife
inside my brain.
So take this image from me,
as if you were to take a cure:
The wet light of a shattered star,
leaking through the woman—its liquids
collecting on the flesh;
they never reach the floor.
[1] Mayo Clinic Connect, “Risperidone caused me to lactate and stopped my period.” https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/risperidone-caused-me-to-lactate-and-stopped-my-period/. Comment from Amanda Roe, 19 December 2021. Accessed 21 March 2025.
[2] Glocker C, Grohmann R, Engel R, Seifert J, Bleich S, Stübner S, Toto S, Schüle C. Galactorrhea during antipsychotic treatment: results from AMSP, a drug surveillance program, between 1993 and 2015. Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci. 2021 Dec;271(8):1425-1435. doi: 10.1007/s00406-021-01241-3. Epub 2021 Mar 25. PMID: 33768297; PMCID: PMC8563638.
Sonya Wohletz
Sonya Wohletz is a writer whose work brings together image, history, and landscapes. Her work has appeared in Latin American Literary Review, Revolute, Roanoke Review, and others. Her first collection of poetry, One Row After/Bir Sira Sonra, was published by First Matter Press in 2022. She is a Pushchart Prize Nominee.